Lizzi Bizzi and the Red Witch

by Stefano Pastor

  I heard a voice, coming from no particular location. «Why did you do that? Why did you do this to me?».

  There was not a single good thing about this place, not even a stupid palm tree. This time the island was deserted. Because it was an island, I was sure, and it was not that big.

  «What did it do? What are you talking about?».

  «You have to give it back! I want back all you’ve got!».

  «And the pearl?», I whispered. «Where’s the pearl? You made me see a pearl!».

  «Come on, hurry up, I’m waiting for you!».

  EMERALD

  SF-Horror Novella

  PLOT

  There are those who want to die, but can’t. This is the case of Monica, who moved to the Emerald. There are those who would like to live and manage to, such as Chata, who prefers her miserable existence to nothing. There are those who would just like the pain to end, one way or the other, such as Edoardo. Then there are those who ask for the truth, such as Nicola. To discover why whoever ever lived at the Emerald cannot die anymore. Fleeing is useless, there is no escape. It might seem like a gift, but it’s a curse. It doesn’t treat old age, it doesn’t even cure illnesses, it just prevents from finding peace. Those once elegant palaces now seem abandoned, but who lives there? Four unlikely allies – a secretary, a prostitute, a pensioner and an ex-convict – decide to discover it.

  EXTRACT

  1

  There was a small park, on a hill not too far away, from which you could enjoy a splendid view. From there, you could see a large part of the city. There was an old lady who would go sitting there every evening, on a bench, and sometimes she spent hours there without doing anything but looking.

  Monica had often wondered who that lady was. The lady would arrive at around 6 PM, right when she left work, and she would almost always stay there until after 8 PM.

  She could see her perfectly from her kitchen, because the counter was right in front of the window. She would see her while she was cooking and often it was as if she was having dinner with her.

  She had done many speculations, perhaps they were a bit romantic. But that’s how Monica was, what could she do about it? The old lady was remembering an old love of hers; on that bench, she was reliving the most exciting moments of her existence. She was almost sure of that.

  Too bad she would have never discovered it.

  When the old lady picked up her things and left, Monica told her goodbye. She waited for her to leave, before opening the vial and emptying it of its content.

  Monica counted them, they were thirty-seven. One of the two vials was still sealed. They would have been more than enough. She contemplated those little yellow pills scattered on the table and she found them cheerful, almost like a kid’s toy. It was easy to forget how lethal they were.

  With only one of those, she would fall in a sound sleep, without dreams, which would last at least eight hours. They were too powerful, that’s why she used them rarely.

  She took a handful of them and she put them in her mouth, then she had a sip of water to be able to swallow them.

  They would have said she’d killed herself for a trifle, she knew that. But she was different, she wasn’t like the other ones, she couldn’t stand certain things.

  She had misunderstood, it was just that. She’d been stupid like a little girl. She had mistaken someone’s kindness for something else, understanding for desire, sympathy for love. She knew he was married, that he had a wife and two wonderful children, she’d even met them, yet she hadn’t reasoned. He was her boss, the best one she’d ever had, the only one who didn’t see secretaries as objects. She’d loved him, right from the first day, and her mistake had been to believe he also had feelings for her.

  He was shy, she’d told herself, so shy he’d never have had the courage to make the first step. She had to help him. Day after day, that belief had grown. And so, she’d done something incredible: for the first time in her life, she’d taken initiative.

  She’d entered his office and she’d locked the door, then she’d basically jumped on him, filling him with kisses. She’d opened up with him, she’d offered him her heart, she’d told him she knew how much he loved her, too.

  That wasn’t how it was. She would have never been able to forget his embarrassed, if not worried, expression. He was maybe even a little disgusted, too. No, he didn’t love her, he’d never wanted her. Indeed, he’d never thought of her as something different than a walking typewriter.

  Maybe he might have been kinder, but she’d really asked for it. He’d made her feel like a frustrated spinster, secretly devouring men, without any moral or good taste.

  Oh, he’d offered her to let bygones be bygones, to forget everything, but how could have that been possible? He now knew she loved him, and she knew that he didn’t love her back. Everyone would have discovered it, at the office. All her colleagues and friends. They would have laughed at her. Quitting would have been useless, too, because she would have always kept hearing those laughs, anywhere.

  She’d even tried to reason, to tell herself it wasn’t that serious after all. But it was, it was the end of her life. The downfall of her whole existence. She’d never have found the courage to look at herself in the mirror, even less so to get out of her house. She might as well put an end to it.

  She swallowed another handful of pills. A sip of water, and another handful, too. She relished the last few ones one at the time, as if to make them last longer. Then she carefully washed the glass and she put it to dry. She checked for the hundredth time that everything was clean and tidy, because she wouldn’t have borne it to be criticised for that, too.

  She laid on the bed, waiting for death, wearing her best dress. She crossed her hands on her breast, because that’s how she’d wanted to be found.

  She waited to fall asleep.

  She woke up two hours later and she puked her guts.

  She destroyed her nice immaculate bedcover, and even the pretty dress she was wearing. She tried to restrain herself, but her body was done with it.

  She burped a yellowish mush, in which the pills were floating, half-melted. She was even tempted to swallow them again, but just thinking it made her vomit again.

  Exhausted, distraught, her stomach hurting and with a general weariness, she dragged herself around the house like a ghost, wondering what she should do.

  She eventually remembered about the razor, the one she used for shaving. She would have cut her veins.

  It would have been disgusting, but every hope of dying with style had gone. She had smeared all her room with vomit and she didn’t have the strength to clean up.

  To hell with everything, let them do it!

  Her ideas were a little confused as to who them were, and not only about that. Taking off the blade turned out to be impossible, cutting herself was even worse. She barely managed to scratch her skin.

  She thus went to the kitchen and she took the sharpest knife, the one with the serrated blade. She’d already hurt herself with that one, once, and she hadn’t wanted to use it since.

  On the practical side, it wasn’t simple at all. Cutting one’s wrists with a single hand was complicated and it hurt, too. When she managed to cut her flesh, she couldn’t refrain from screaming. The blood spurted out, because she must have sliced a few veins. She couldn’t understand how deep she’d gone, but there was a lot of blood.

  Her attempts to cut the other wrist, too, didn’t end up well. It wasn’t easy to hold a knife with a wrist in those conditions. She couldn’t do it with enough strength. She made two small cuts and a little blood started going out, then she gave up, because she couldn’t have done anything better.

  She went laying on her bed, surrounded by her vomit, because all her strength was leaving her. She quickly dirtied her nice bedcover with blood. This time she wasn’t able to cross her arms on her breast. They were hurting too much and she was robbed of all strength.

  She closed her eyes and she waited.


  2

  They knocked at the door at 6 AM.

  More than knocking, it seemed to her as if someone was punching her. Or maybe it was just her head rumbling.

  «I’m coming! I’m coming», shouted Monica, half asleep. The knocks grew louder and louder.

  She woke up and she was steeped in pain. What was happening to her?

  «Just one second, I’m coming!», she shouted with a rasping voice.

  Then she noticed that her bedcover was all red. She almost started screaming. The memories crowded her mind.

  She hadn’t died, that was clear. Not yet.

  She looked at her wrists. They’d both stopped bleeding. The deepest cut was covered by clotted blood, the others had almost disappeared, they seemed to be just scratches.

  She looked at them incredulous. It wasn’t possible, she wasn’t even good at that!

  When she tried to get off her bed, she ended up on the floor. This was partially because of the vomit, on which she slipped, but also because her body was so weak that it didn’t allow her to stand on her feet. She must have lost a lot of blood. Not enough to die, though.

  She dragged herself to the bathroom, shouting: «Just a minute!».

  She wasn’t willing to show herself in those conditions. She barely noticed that the knocking had stopped. She thought she heard some faraway screams.

  As soon as she turned the light on, she stifled a cry. Who was that hellish monster who was looking at her from the mirror?

  She almost teared her dress while hurriedly taking it off, because she couldn’t stand seeing it in those conditions, then she turned the shower on and she put her head under the jet without waiting for it to be warm.

  The ice-cold water washed the blood away and gave her the lash she needed. She went in fully, even if she was still wearing her bra and knickers. The water melted the crusted blood and she could see the carnage she’d done on her wrists. Luckily, the wound didn’t open again.

  She went out of the shower, staggering, and she put on a bathrobe. She barely dried her hair, leaving them to fall on her shoulder. She retrieved a pair of slippers and she went to open the door.

  Did someone already know that she’d attempted suicide? Had someone worried? Maybe they’d called and received no answer. Could it be him?

  She was really a wreck, the mirror showed the image of a downcast magpie. She wanted to break it into a thousand pieces, but she’d already had enough bad luck.

  She let the chain slide, she turned the various keys that she always left in the locks, and for once she didn’t even look at the door-viewer. If there had just been a thief waiting to kill her!

  She opened the door.

  Edoardo was seventy, but his life had already ended ten years earlier – that is to say, when he’d been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, a hateful illness that he’d been trying to ignore for as long as possible.

  From that moment, his fall in the abyss had started. Within two years, he’d had to quit his job, he’d become an invalid. For the past four years he’d been having more and more frequent attacks, during which he’d lost the use of his hands completely. It was basically impossible for him to lift even just a pen.

  Precisely for this reason, he didn’t know what to do that strange morning. He’d knocked with his elbows at all the doors, and he was so shocked that he couldn’t even remember anymore which flat was inhabited and which one wasn’t. Every year was worse, at the Emerald, more and more tenants moved out and obviously nobody would come to take their place.

  He wasn’t a great talker, he was used to mind his own business, so he’d usually know it only when they’d moved out already.

  That morning, the crisis was in full swing, one of the worst ones. He’d struggled a lot to open the door and go out in the corridor. But he couldn’t help doing it: in the apartment next door, they were killing each other off.

  The shouts were so loud that you could hear them from the street, but no one had intervened. He understood that, a little, it wasn’t easy for anyone. It was much better to turn one’s head to the other side.

  Edoardo had already dealt with his neighbour and it hadn’t been a pleasing experience. Kito was a first-rate bastard. He was from Kenya, but he’d been in Italy for fifteen years already. He was a criminal, he’d meddled with everything, but for a few years now he’d been focusing on prostitution. He had two girls, who lived with him, but luckily he didn’t make them work at home. He’d hardly found clients willing to go there. He brought them out every evening and they came back only in the early morning.

  That’s what happened that night, too, but as soon as they’d returned home, the fight had started.

  From the voices, he could tell it had to be about Chata, his compatriot. A blonde lived with Kito too, she’d come straight from Eastern Europe, but she couldn’t speak a word of Italian. Edoardo didn’t understand how they could understand each other. Chata, instead, spoke Italian even better than her pimp. As far as he’d understood, the girl had come to Italy to study, ten years earlier, but she’d been led astray; Kito was the worst that could have happened to her.

  This time, he’d have tried to kill her. Maybe that’s what he was doing in that very moment. Edoard didn’t know what to do anymore.

  They were fighting in their native language, so he couldn’t understand a word, and from the woman’s screams it was evident that he was beating hear. Edoardo had even dared knocking at the door, but he’d been ignored. He’d obtained the same result by knocking at all the doors of that floor.

  The Emerald was different from any other apartment block. The tenants were few, there, and everyone minded their own business. The majority of them never left home. For the ten years he’d been living there, the fingers of one hand would have been enough to count all the people he’d talked with for something more than a quick ‘hi’. He sometimes wondered if it wasn’t a ghost building, and he was the only tenant still alive. But he knew it wasn’t like that.

  When Monica went out of her apartment and looked around, Edoardo was at the other side of the corridor. He noticed her immediately.

  «Don’t shut the door! Wait! We must do something! He’s killing her!».

  Monica knew that old man, she’d never talked to him but she’d happened to meet him in the lift. Despite being confused, she understood he must have been one of the neighbours.

  That man was strange: he trudged towards her, staggering. and he held his hand in a weird way. One tied to the other, hooked and numb.

  «Can’t you hear?», he asked.

  Monica could actually hear now. Someone was shouting, somewhere, but it could have been from a film, too, though it was a weird time to watch a film.

  «Who are they?», she asked.

  «My neighbours, they live right next to me». Then the old man groaned. «He’ll hurt her, this time he’ll hurt her».

  Monica was already in too much trouble, she was in a devastated situation, too, and she was trying to hid her wrists using the long sleeves of her robe. She was reluctant to offer to call the police, she didn’t really feel like she could stand a questioning in those conditions.

  «What should I do?».

  The old man went back and he started knocking at a door. It was bizarre, because he was doing it with his elbows.

  «Can you hear me, Kito? Did you hear me? We’re calling the police now, did you hear that?».

  Monica didn’t even know that that apartment was inhabited. Their schedules didn’t coincide and she’d never met any of the tenants.

  The woman’s scream grew so loud that she got worried, too, and she’d even gone back in to call for help if the door hadn’t opened.

  A black man over two meters went out, he looked more like a gorilla than a human being, he was wearing a brightly-coloured Hawaiian shirt, a pair of sunglasses and at least a kilo of golden chains on his breast. He faced the old man with a gaze of pure hatred.

  Monica was about to shout, or to go back home, certain he’d attack hi
m.

  Which he did, but only verbally. «Mind your own business, you old screwed man!».

  He even pushed him, but not enough to make him fall. «Do you want her?», he shouted. «Free me from that shitty whore, then!».

  He left, leaving them slack-jawed. When he walked past Monica, she rushed back in her apartment and she went out only when she was sure he wasn’t there anymore.

  The old man had already entered the neighbour’s apartment, as the door had been left open. Monica dared venturing in.

  When she stuck out her head from the door, she screamed.

  3

  There was a woman lying on the floor, with a superb mop of hair divided in really small braids. She was wearing a mini skirt and a big belt, as well as a low-necked shirt. She must have lost her shoes. The old man was trying to lift her and the woman was dripping blood like a fountain.

  She had a bad cut, at the base of the neck, and it wasn’t easy to understand how serious it was. The blood had already soaked her shirt.

  «I’m calling the police!», shouted Monica, putting any hesitation on the side.

  «Don’t be silly», replied the old man. «Go call an ambulance, instead».

  Maybe he was right, and after all, it was the same thing. When the nurses would have seen her in those conditions, they would have called the police, too.

  She went back to her apartment and she dialled the emergency number. She was very summary. «A woman has been attacked, she seems seriously wounded. Make sure you come at once. I’m at the Emerald Village, apartment 18B».

  «We’ll be there as soon as possible», was the reply at the phone.

  It was the first time she had to do a similar phone call, but she had expected something more. In the movies, it always happened differently. They hadn’t even asked her who she was, nor any info about the victim and the type of wounds.

  She thought it an unforgivable foolhardiness, but at the same time she was happy for it, because she had no intention of meddling with certain things.

  She went back to give the news. «They’re coming».